I don’t know if this is appropriate for this forum, so please kindly
dicipline me, if I am out of line. 
Some days ago, as I was working on a Rails project, it occured to me
that
numerical values on ActiveRecord objects can be kind of annoying to work
with and I got an idea for a solution that would give me an opportunity
to
dwell into metaprogramming and gem development - two fields on which I
have
no prior experience. The basic idea is to declare the units used in
numeral
attributes and exploit that knowledge for formatting and conversion
purposes. Perhaps this has already been done before, although I wasn’t
able
to find anything in a few quick Google searches.
Anyway, Instead of repeating myself, I’d like you to skim the README on
this new project of mine:
I would really appreciate feedback on whether this is a good idea. And
secondly, if you have the time, I’d would be nice to get some feedback
on
the details of the implementation as well. I know it has no specs yet,
but
that’s because I’m using a Try-Driven Development process whenever
venturing into new things. =)
// Niels Buus
On May 17, 2013, at 9:48 PM, Niels Buus wrote:
I don’t know if this is appropriate for this forum, so please kindly dicipline
me, if I am out of line.
Some days ago, as I was working on a Rails project, it occured to me that
numerical values on ActiveRecord objects can be kind of annoying to work with and
I got an idea for a solution that would give me an opportunity to dwell into
metaprogramming and gem development - two fields on which I have no prior
experience. The basic idea is to declare the units used in numeral attributes and
exploit that knowledge for formatting and conversion purposes. Perhaps this has
already been done before, although I wasn’t able to find anything in a few quick
Google searches.
Anyway, Instead of repeating myself, I’d like you to skim the README on this new
project of mine:
GitHub - nielsbuus/united_attributes
I would really appreciate feedback on whether this is a good idea. And secondly,
if you have the time, I’d would be nice to get some feedback on the details of the
implementation as well. I know it has no specs yet, but that’s because I’m using a
Try-Driven Development process whenever venturing into new things. =)
This is really cool, thanks for doing this! I can see a problem ahead
for currency – I built a currency converter a while back that relied on
a lookup of the current day’s exchange rates. Not a pretty thing. You
sort of tease at that with your vs # when discussing the duck, just
letting you know that while your premise is extremely tight, and your
execution as I see it here is really neatly done, that particular detail
will make you cry when it comes time to make it real.
Walter